GCSE results: How the nation’s students performed

Figures have been released which reveal how pupils across the nation performed in their GCSEs.

Here are the statistics which show how the North West has compared to other regions.

In the North West 68.6% of students taking GCSEs were awarded A*-C grades, that’s a 0,3% increase on 2014 but just below the UK average of 69%.

In London, Northern Ireland and the South East of England more than 70% of students received high grades, with Yorkshire/Humber and East Midlands returning the fewest numbers of students taking high grades with 65.3% and 65.6% respectively.

Across the UK as a whole 21.2% of GCSE students earned the very highest grades (A*-A) that compares to 19.7% of students in the North West, a figure that has dropped 0.1% on last year, Northern Ireland produced the highest number of students earning A*-A grades, with 28.6%, while the lowest number of A*-A grades came from students in the North East and Yorkshire/Humber, where only 17.6% earned top marks.

And here are the main figures in this year’s GCSE results:

- There were 5,277,604 entrants for the exams, up 1% on 2014’s total.

- Candidates receiving a C grade or above risen for the second year in a row. The number of entrants scoring between A* and C was 69%, up from 68.8% in 2014.

- The overall pass rate rose slightly. The number of candidates receiving A*-G was 98.6%, up 0.1 percentage points on last year. The rise follows two years of small declines, from the peak of 99% in 2012.

- A total of 6.6% of entrants received an A*, down 0.1 points on last year. This continues a downward trend since a peak of 7.8% in 2011.

- There was a similar fall in candidates receiving grades A*-A, falling 0.1 points to 21.2%.

- Just under two thirds of English candidates received grade C or above (65.4%), a jump of 3.7 percentage points on 2014.

- Computing saw the biggest jump in entrants, rising by 111% on last year.

- Humanities saw the biggest fall in candidates, dropping by 22%.

- Languages (French, German and Spanish) saw a combined fall in entrants of 5.7%. German saw the biggest drop of the three, down 9.8%. Candidates for French fell by 6.2%, while Spanish was down 2.4%.

- The gap between boys and girls receiving grade C and above has narrowed, from 8.8 percentage points in 2014 to 8.4 in 2015. This is because the number of boys getting C and above has risen from 64.3% to 64.7%. The figure for girls is unchanged at 73.1%.